Centuries passed faster than decades ever did.
Nations I once knew became footnotes. Languages evolved beyond recognition. Technology exploded forward—faster travel, faster communication, faster lives. Humans moved quicker, but they still burned out just as fast.
I adapted.
I always adapted.
I learned new tools, new sciences, new ways of thinking. I watched humans reach for the stars while still fighting the same old wars. Progress and destruction marched side by side, century after century.
People began to sense me—not as a person, but as a pattern. A scholar who appeared every few hundred years. A traveler in old photographs who didn't belong. A rumor. A myth.
I stopped forming deep bonds. Not because I didn't care—but because caring had become too expensive.
Instead, I focused on larger things: preserving knowledge, guiding civilization quietly, planting ideas that would only bloom generations later. I became a long-term thinker in a short-term world.
Sometimes, I wondered if I was still human—or just wearing the shape of one.